Tuesday, April 10, 2007

We are deeply saddened to have recieved these words from Andrew Tyler of Animal Aid

Dear All

A very special person, Michael Sutcliffe, died over Easter. He was a great supporter of Animal Aid and several other groups; went on all the major and a great many minor demos; wrote non-stop to government departments and newspapers; chaired and participated in all kinds of meetings; was personally very kind and supportive...and brave: his non-stop campaigning barely flagged through a series of painful and debilitating ailments and illnesses over recent years. He was 84. He was found, presumed to have suffered a heart attack, at his desk with his research papers all around ...active and determined to the last. He was an inspiration and a wonderful asset to the animal rights movement. He will be sorely missed.

Andrew TylerDirector Animal Aid

Michael Sutcliffe was the epitome of a true English gentleman, too much of a gentleman to be anything other than a vegan.

"I write as an Animal Rights (and a few human rights) person, as a rather ageing Vegan foot soldier, now fortunate to be retired, as from 1987, after 41 years hard work, as a Chartered Shipbroker (Before that straight from school, wartime naval service, 1942 – 46) – now, to have the time, to be able to try and help support all the wonderful friends in our movement of compassion, and to express my indignation, and anger, over the never ending and systematic cruelty to animals done by “man”.

The numbers of suffering animals throughout the world are absolutely horrendous, and in their billions, be they in research laboratories (as “tools”); in “factory farms” (markets, transport, slaughter, as animals for food); in zoos, circuses (for entertainment); in the fur industry (for personal adornment); in the countryside, in the wild, as targets for hunting, shooting, angling, trapping, either as “vermin control” or merely as “sport”, amusement and “leisure pursuit”; at sea, its inhabitants decimated, cruelly, by whaling, dolphin slaughter and over-fishing, trapped in huge small-mesh nets.

In this country alone, each and every week, some 600,000 cattle, pigs, sheep, and some 16 million poultry, chickens, turkeys, ducks, are killed ruthlessly, to be eaten, merely for their taste and enjoyment, to be chewed, trashed through a diseased digestive system, and summarily flushed down the lavatory, all totally unnecessary for human health and existence. Such is the monstrous disregard by “man” for sentient creatures, with their own rights, who try and share this small world with rapacious greedy and brutal “man”.

Our thoughts and wishes go out to Michael Sutcliffe's family, many friends and colleagues from the animal welfare and vegan movement and hope that many more people step up to try to fill Michael's shoes and make the future that he dreamed of a practical reality.

6 comments:

hey, what a great idea for a blog! I've been a vegetarian for over a decade now. Are you familiar with the websites www.pcrm.org or www.drmcdougall.com/? I've found them to be useful sources of breaking vegetarian / vegan nutrition news.

I'm proud and honoured to have stood shoulder to shoulder with Michael at many demos, especially the anti-Canadian seal hunt demos. Every animal rights event I attended, he was invariably there too. He has been and will continue to be an inspiration to the entire animal rights movement.